


The Stuff of Legend, Part Two

by WordMusician



Series: The Stuff of Legend [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I was asked to do a follow up, It could almost be real, This is fiction but I wish it was real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10676739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordMusician/pseuds/WordMusician
Summary: John stared at her.  “What?” he was horrified and chuffed in equal measure.This story picks up right after the previous one (yeah, I recommend you read it first).  Probably should have made it a chapter, but I'm new to this and didn't know how.





	The Stuff of Legend, Part Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Inari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Inari/gifts).



> Lady_Inari expressed interest in a follow up to The Stuff of Legends, wondering what John's reaction actually would be so I am gifting this to her. I don't know a lot about the television entertainment business. I know about professional theater and I have been at a live television production so I used those experiences. If I'm off the mark, chalk it up to this being an "alternative" universe, even though I'm trying to suggest that we actually LIVE in this alternate...

Pete set his briefcase down and handed his overcoat to the butler.  Jackie was hovering in the doorway to the lounge.  Usually, at this time of day she was in front of the telly watching one of her soaps.

“Hello Jacks.”  He couldn’t keep the question mark out of his voice.

She nodded and beckoned to him, tugging on his arm as soon as he was within reach.

“What is it?”

Jackie looked around to make sure none of the servants were within earshot.  “This arrived today,” she whispered excitedly.

“It’s addressed to Rose,” Pete observed looked at the envelope Jackie handed him.

“It’s okay. She said I could read it.  Well, go on then.”

Pete smiled indulgently at his wife.  Her excitement was palpable.  Curious to know the source, he glanced at the return address.  The BBC?  What, did they want Rose to do an interview again?  He slid out the paper inside and read quickly.  This curiosity swiftly became dread.

“Isn’t it wonderfully?” Jackie enthused, “Our Rose, writing for the telly!  Maybe even a movie!”

“Jacks, love, this isn’t wonderful.  It’s not good at all.”

“What do you mean, Pete?  She worked so hard on her writing and been through so much.  It’s grand that she’ll be finally getting some proper recognition.”

Pete crushed the letter in his fist.  “She’ll get recognition all right.  The very sort Torchwood worked so hard to keep her away from.  Jackie, what was the point of giving her a new identity if she was just going to go public with it all?  It was bad enough when she was writing her blog, calling herself Bad Wolf.  What does John have to say?”

Jackie frowned.  She’d been so excited for her daughter’s success that she hadn’t thought it through.  “I don’t know what John says.  This just arrived today.  Can’t you just be happy for her?”

Pete sighed exasperatedly.  He wanted to be happy for Rose, but no one had any idea what he had gone through to give her and John a semblance of a normal life.  It had taken nearly a year of debates and arguments with the other Torchwood directors before they had provisionally agreed that John Noble was not a national security risk.  He’d even had two in camera meetings with the British President to assure the same.

He shielded both John and Rose from increasing pressure to enlist them in Torchwood properly.  So far, they had committed to nothing more than arm’s length consulting.  John said it was because of his experience with the other Torchwood; this one had yet to prove themselves worthy before he “got into bed with that lot.”  Rose had resigned her commission when the dimension cannon project was in its last phase.  Having no plans to even return here, she’d since then kept her options open, following John’s lead.

As long as they’d kept a low profile and were not contacted by any other military/scientific Earth agency, Torchwood had been grudgingly willing to give them at least the illusion of freedom.

That could all bow up in their face now.

“Jackie, I am happy for Rose but this is a complication we could do without.”

Jackie shrugged, taking the letter from him and smoothing it out on the crinkles.  “Rose will be out to pick this up.  We can all discuss it then, yeah?”  She had loved the idea of Rose being a famous writer but Pete had certainly taken the shine off things.

 

 

Rose sat with John on the sofa, curled into his side.  She muted the television and gently closed the book in his lap.  She knew he had already memorized the page number of his spot.  “I remember how you felt when I started writing our adventures,” she began.

John looked down at the top of her head in puzzlement.  Where was the conversation going?

“And I remember how you felt when I started blogging ‘em.” 

“They are our private stories, Rose.”

Rose nodded.  This was old territory but now she was pushing at the boundaries their truce had established.  She worried the cuticle of her thumb – and old habit that told John much.

“But,” John conceded, “I also know how it made you feel to write them down.  You’re a natural born storyteller – I wish I could have taken you to Ood Prime, you’d have loved their songs.  You’ve done so well with your blog.  Of course,” he smiled, “You do have some excellent experiences to draw from.”

“The most excellent of experiences.”

“And an excellent muse.”

“The most excellent of muses; I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”

“So, what’s happened now?”

“Now?” Rose sat up straight, twisting around so she could look at him and took a steadying breath. “ _Stuff of Legends_ has received some major attention.  Apparently R.T. Davies of the BBC wants to meet to discuss turning my stories into television.”

John stared at her.  “What?” he was horrified and chuffed in equal measure and he wanted to – just this once – to control his gob and choose his words carefully.  He could tell this turn of events was very important to Rose.

“Mr. Davies thinks the Doctor is a fresh and exciting character that could capture the viewer’s imagination.”

John’s first impulse was to shout out a resounding NO and categorically forbid Rose from agreeing to any such thing.  He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her and scream: what on earth was she thinking, exposing their past – their cherished, personal, private memories – to the world to be paraded around on the telly.  He didn’t want to be the next East Enders!  How could she even entertain the notion? All those thoughts crashed through his clever mind but something else held him in an iron grip of self-control.

“Why?” he asked slowly.

“Mr. Davies said they were always looking for something new.  I don’t know how, but someone over there must have stumbled on my blog.”

“No, I mean why do you want to do this, Rose?”

Rose blinked.  This was nothing like the reaction she’d been expecting and dreading. It took her a moment to consider an honest answer instead of a defensive one. “Well, I believe that I have something important to say, I suppose.  I mean, the Doctor – you ‘n me – we know there’s a better way to live.  Better than going to work, coming home an’ eating beans on toast every day.  We know you should take a stand.  You say no to what’s wrong and you do something to make it right.”  She reached out and took his hands in hers.  “I guess if the Doctor can’t be here saving this universe, he can still make a difference for good.  We can be his voice.  Maybe make more of difference than if we were buried behind Torchwood procedures and protocols all the time.  The people out there need to know.”

John squeezed her hands. He loved to watch the fire in her eyes and hear the conviction in her voice and not have it being turned on him in anger – something that would have happened if he’d given in to his first impulses.  “Rose, I can’t deny I have huge reservations and a myriad of questions, but I believe in you.  I always have.”  He leaned forward and kissed her gently.  “I’m absolutely terrified but if you want to, then let’s do this.”

“Yeah?”  Rose was gobsmacked. 

“Yeah.  But let’s be careful and take it one step at a time.  If we don’t like what’s happening, we pull out.”

“Of course.  I want to talk to Pete about getting some legal advice before we do anything or sign anything.  Creative control will be a big issue.”

“Huge!”  John’s eyes widened as he mentally explored the ramifications of the proposal.  He might not be able to sense time lines but he could still make powerful predictions based on complex data and variables.  He wondered what kind of budget there would be.  He already knew he was going to be a stickler for accuracy...and who in this alternative universe were they going to find that could play him correctly?

“But John,” Rose’s voice drew his attention, “As far as anyone else is concerned this is science fiction we’re talking about. Heavy on the fiction part, remember. You know we will have to make room for compromises.”

John pouted, “But I only compromise with you, Rose.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a playful shove.  “Really?  Never noticed,” she scoffed.  “But seriously, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The BBC might not even want to do this in the end.”

“Rubbish! Your stories are brilliant.  Of course they are, how could they not be?  He’d be an idiot not to snap you up at this first meeting.”  John frowned and with a sudden surge of possessiveness added, “I’m coming with.”

Rose grinned, “Of course you are, you plum.”  She pressed him back against the sofa and showed him how grateful she was.

 

She had it.  After eight months, she had a signed contract.  Torchwood had tried to kill the project before she even had her first meeting with Russell.  She’d had a major row with Pete and for a while they had been barely civil.  It was Jackie, over a bottomless pot of tea that finally sat them down and set them straight. While she didn’t always like how the Doctor operated, she couldn’t fault all the good he’d done for her Rose or the many times he’d saved the universe.  Telling his story would be good for people.  It’s give them hope – and a laugh too.  There was nothing wrong with that, Jackie reasoned and she dared Torchwood or Pete to tell her differently. 

 

It was finally agreed that Rose could sell any of the stories that were already posted to her blog and that if the time came, new stories would be vetted by a Torchwood censorship team before passing them on to the television script writers.  The show writers were reluctant to give up creative control to an unknown author, but she had copywriten her Doctor character and his universe so completely that there was no way around it.  Details were left up to an army of lawyers. 

Rose would continue to write under her nom de plume, _Bad Wolf_ , and John would take the front seat in involvement with the studio.  Rose would have her hands full keeping John under control and would lend her Vitex celebrity status to promoting “his” project if and when it finally went to air.

Russell had been a dream to work with.  He had been very open to all the “back-story” she and John could provide for the Doctor character and his adventures.  He listened carefully to their mental pictures of what the TARDIS should look like and how it should function.  He was happy to take the careful schematics John had drafted and promised to pass them on to props and sets.  Really, they had done all the heavy lifting and he got to bring it to life.

Rose took a screen writing course to better translate her blog stories into scripts and Russell met with her repeatedly to go over revisions.  His patience spoke volumes to his belief in the project and the outcome of the final product.

He’d let them sift through a stack of potential actors to identify preliminary selections, but he drew the line at the actual audition process.  The day they held the first round of auditions for the Doctor, she and John had secretly camped out in the BBC parking lot and watched the candidates come and go.  John had been very vocal about his opinions and Rose had had to physically restrain him in the car more than once.  She also took away his cell phone so he couldn’t take pictures and google the results.

That night, neither of them slept.

When final casting had been set, John and Rose got to meet their counter parts.  Rose had vigorously coached John but he’d advised her that he’d met multiple regenerations of himself and this wouldn’t be that different.  Rose had countered that these were real people with separate lives; they were only playing a part not living it.  She’d had to give herself the same speech and not react too much when the actress who would play her turned out to be a brunette.  Nothing a visit to the hair dresser couldn’t fix, if she could persuade Russell that it was important to the show.  In the end, the meet and greet had gone fairly smoothly. 

 

“What are you going to call it?” Jackie asked one night. The two couples had met up for dinner in town.

“Well, the working title is Bad Wolf Tales,” Rose answered.

“Too punny,” John critiqued. “People might think it belongs on the animal channel.”

“Or is about werewolves,” Pete offered.

“Saw one once,” John commented.

“Really?” Pete asked.

Before they could launch into another round of storytelling, Jackie brought them back to the question at hand.  “So what are you going to call it?”

Rose shrugged. “I don’t know.  Russell asked me to tender some names, but I haven’t given it much thought.”

“I know the perfect name,” John said.  “Since it’s actually Torchwood’s fault that we all ended up here, how about...” he paused dramatically, arching a supercilious eyebrow, “an anagram?”

“A what?” Jackie puzzled.

“Call it “Doctor Who” – that’s an anagram of Torchwood.  It would be our inside joke.”

“Doctor Who,” Rose tested the sound of it on her lips.  “I like it.  Gets the Doctor’s name in it and asked a question – makes it a mystery, just like he is.  Doctor Who.  I’ll text that to RT right now.”

 

 

The real challenge had come when they got to see the cast in costume for a promo shoot on the set.  They arrived early and talked a stage hand into giving them a quick tour.

 As they first stepped onto the metal gangway, it was all Rose could do not to break down and bawl.  It looked so real!  With a twist in her gut, she realized that all that was missing was the TARID’s own humming in the back of her mind.  She’d worriedly looked at John to gauge his reaction, but only the high flush on his cheeks and the thinness of his lips betrayed his emotions.

“She’s beautiful,” Rose murmured.

“Always,” he agreed and grabbed tightly to her hand.

They stayed well back during the shooting of the promo.  All the back camera activity was very distracting:  people running back and forth, cables and cameras being rolled out and repositioned, bright lights and people shouting orders.  But when the director called “action” and the actors went through their parts, something magical happened.  Rose and John exchanged a manic grin.  This was going to work!

In the months that followed, Rose and John rode a roller coaster of emotions.  There were the inevitable clashes of John’s irascible expert opinion and the pragmatic production team of both cast and crew.  More than once Rose had been mediator and the stress of keeping the dream alive and her relationship in good standing was almost too much.  No one on the inside was surprised when Chris announced that he was only shooting the one season and they would have to find a new man to play the Doctor if the BBC picked it up for a second.

John was excited because that meant they would have to do a regeneration scene.  He was also terrified because there were still some things about the Game Station adventure that he had never actually told Rose.  Just how realistic did this have to be?


End file.
